I share my experiences in genealogy education, including taking classes at the National Institute for Genealogical Studies and preparing my BCG portfolio. I also post updates to my personal research and general genealogy news.

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Saturday, April 17, 2010

Ancestor Approved Award

I was surprised and very honored to see that I was recently nominated for an Ancestor Approved Award from three fellow genealogy bloggers: Betty at Betty’s Boneyard Genealogy Blog, Leslie at Lost Family Treasures and Bonnie at Amore e Sapore di Famiglia. I apologize that it took me so long to respond!
There are two conditions to this award. First, I must list ten facts about my ancestors that surprised, humbled or enlightened me. Second, I must pass the award on to ten fellow bloggers who “do their ancestors proud.”
So here we go :)

I was:

1) Surprised to learn that my great-grandfather Everett Brenton was (allegedly) a bootlegger during Prohibition, and that he and my great-grandmother went through a very ugly divorce as a result.
2) Humbled to discover that, even though I thought I knew a lot about my extended family, I have many living relatives that I've never met.
3) Surprised that I have a few other relatives researching our family tree as well – all I had to do was reach out on Internet research sites, and there they were!
4) Humbled the power of the Internet to bring people together. I'm meeting more and more distant cousins all the time, and it's wonderful to bring our pieces of the puzzle together.
5) Surprised to find that I would have had another aunt on my father's side, but she was stillborn. For that matter, surprised and saddened by the number of children in my family tree who died young.
6) Enlightened by Ancestry's World Archives project as to how little I really know about paleography. I took a look at some of their “advanced” transcribing projects and went skittering back to the “easy” ones.
7) Humbled to be able to reveal to my boyfriend's family that they were in all likelihood descended from passengers on the Mayflower – and surprised by all that those two passengers and their ancestors had to go through just to get to the boat!
8) Surprised to receive a letter from William Fritzley's sweetheart (he was my maternal grandfather) from his days at an Army base in Kentucky. Even more surprised, and grateful, that she sent pictures of him from 1941!
9) Surprised by the number of helpful and earnest researchers I have met, who were willing to share important information with me about my family.
10) Humbled by just how much I don't know.